


Now Seeming Sweet

by dafna



Category: Slings and Arrows
Genre: M/M, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:16:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafna/pseuds/dafna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Geoffrey Tennant meets Darren Nichols and learns how to use a sword.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now Seeming Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Written for mazily in the Yuletide 2006 Challenge

The first time Geoffrey Tennant fought with Darren Nichols was in the dusty common room of Sylvia Halling's dorm. Twenty-some other cast and crew members had crowded in for the first reading and Geoffrey was basically sitting on Lady Capulet's lap. Benvolio was smoking in his ear and Sylvia, the director, was loudly telling everyone to please shut up. Geoffrey had been at university less than 10 days and was thrilled by every aspect.

"I am for you," he said, reading Tybalt's challenge.

"Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up," read David Edelson, who even the freshmen had heard already had an agent and was going on auditions.

"Come sir, your passado!" The dark-haired junior who had looked him up and down and then winked before saying "I'm Darren" sprang to his feet as he read from his battered copy of the play.

Sylvia, taking notes, didn't look up as she waved her hand in the air said "and then you two fight."

Darren reached across two people and laid a gentle slap on Geoffrey's face, letting his hand linger a few extra seconds. Geoffrey blushed. Darren laughed and lifted his hand. "Right, we'll leave all the manly thrusting for later, shall we?"

The second time was on stage during the first fight rehearsal and it didn't help Geoffrey's concentration that every time he dropped his foil Darren made a comment on his inability to keep it up. The blocking for his second fight went better. David was kinder, plus Geoffrey found getting stabbed, rather than being the guy doing the stabbing, forced him to concentrate harder lest he slip up and wind up having to explain a stab wound to the university clinic.

With Tybalt finally, blessedly, dead, Geoffrey threw his foil on the ground and walked offstage. He put his hands on his knees and crouched over a little, breathing hard but still able to watch from the wings as David dueled with the sophomore playing Paris.

"Hot?" asked a voice about 5 cm from his ear. Geoffrey willed his pulse to calm down as Darren slid his hand around Geoffrey's wrist and pressed the inside with his thumb.

"I'm OK," said Geoffrey, blushing. "What do you think of David's style?"

Darren released Geoffrey's wrist and stepped from behind him to watch the rehearsal a minute.

"Not bad," he said. "He played Cyrano last year, of course, so that helped."

Geoffrey felt bold suddenly. "I thought you were going to tell me he wasn't as good as you?"

With one step, Darren was back in Geoffrey's personal space. "Oh, I wouldn't say that," Darren said, so close Geoffrey could smell his sweat. "I know my limits. David's better at handling a stick than I am." Geoffrey blushed again, much to his embarrassment. Darren smiled and leaned forward. "Generally, dear," he whispered in Geoffrey's ear, "I get other people to handle mine."

And with no further preliminary than that he shoved one hand down Geoffrey's jeans and clapped the other over his mouth. "Just keep watching the rehearsal," he ordered and Geoffrey nodded, amazed any of his motor skills were working.

Darren lifted his hand out and made quick work of Geoffrey's zipper. He spread the jeans flap wide and lifted out Geoffrey's dick, already dark red and wet.

"Practice is the key thing, of course," he said. He rubbed his thumb around the tip, slicking up his hand before moving it up to grasp Geoffrey's dick more firmly.

Geoffrey found it difficult to breathe. Darren was seemingly everywhere, at his back, whispering in his ear and, of course, his hand at his front, producing sounds that Geoffrey hadn't known he could make.

He moaned against the hand holding his mouth hostage. All of his senses seemed concentrated down to the feel of Darren's hand, hot and sure. Darren kept up a low round of chatter as he worked, which Geoffrey realized was an incredible turn-on.

Halfway through a joke about "the bawdy hand of the dial on the prick of the noon," Darren paused long enough to bite his ear and Geoffrey came.

"Come on," Darren said, wiping his hands on Geoffrey's shirt. "They never lock the dressing rooms during rehearsals."

By opening night, Geoffrey and Darren had fought 18 more times, fucked 12 times and performed an undetermined number of other lewd acts throughout the university theater complex. They were caught only once, when Darren had pushed Geoffrey up against a hallway during the second half of the dress. Tybalt and Mercutio were both dead, but Darren and Geoffrey were celebrating life with a lot of grunting and thrusting when the costume manager came round the corner and saw them.

"Oh my God!" she shrieked. "Do you know how much it costs to dry-clean those? For god's sake, change first!"

The night of the last performance Geoffrey pushed Darren into a wall and kissed him for several minutes, all tongue and loud breathing. "God, you smell fantastic," he said. "I want to inhale you and suck you and fuck you and oh my god," he said, as Darren began running his hands down Geoffrey's ass.

The night of the last performance Sylvia threw an after-party on the stage, and it wasn't until his third drink and second promise to be friends forever with someone he had never seen before that Geoffrey looked over and saw Darren. He was holding hands with a blonde girl. Ten minutes later, Darren was introducing her: "Natalie, this is the guy who stabs me; Geoffrey, this is my girlfriend Natalie." Twenty minutes later, Darren and Natalie were making out on top of Juliet's coffin and when Geoffrey caught Darren's eye over Natalie's shoulder, the junior merely shrugged as if to say, "what part of `the play is over' did you not get, anyway?"

An hour later, David challenged Darren to a friendly duel, Capulet vs. Capulet. It ended when David misjudged his distance and ran right past Darren into the coffin and promptly fell on his ass. Darren was still shaking from laughter when he felt a prick at his back. He turned around.

"My turn," Geoffrey said. And his eyes were deadly serious.


End file.
